TESTS

Who would argue that a 2^nd language student possessing confidence, intrinsic motivation, self- discipline, autonomous learning skills and creative thinking ability, would not excel over students lacking in such psychological attributes?

Yet, Chinese college and university students arrive on the school’s doorstep almost completely lacking in any appreciable development in any of these areas, even post-graduate students with four years of undergraduate work under their belts.  In short, they are lazy procrastinators who, at the last minute, cram for the exam.

Most Chinese students are gold medal champions when it comes to memorization skills. This has given rise to the Chinese three-day educational system. Students literally sleep through an eighteen week semester. Then, the first day before the exam they memorize all the materials, even the teacher’s PPT’s that the kind teachers freely make available. The second day they spit out everything on the exam. On the third day they forget everything they had memorized.

The tests include: Listening Comprehension, Vocabulary, Cloze and Reading Comprehension. The questions are multiple guess or fill in the blanks from the choices on offer. Such tests contribute nothing to development of creative thinking and without substantial feedback, merely reinforce wrong answers.

Uniform exams, with uniform answers, graded by uniform templates, for the assembly line production of Human Robots with uniform skills and uniform capabilities.

This testing methodology is extremely unfair to the students who are not accomplished in memorization skills. They are also no measure of growth and development and do not reward actual effort expended. They only measure an accomplishment level that a student may have attained even before taking the course. They penalize a student who has made a significant effort and improvement but has not attained the required uniform English level.

In Holistic English we attach great importance to the development of the psychological skills of confidence, intrinsic motivation, self- discipline, autonomous learning skills and creative thinking ability. Once a student possesses a degree of such skills or attitudes, learning will be a natural consequence.  Each student is free to progress and develop their English skills in accordance with their personal degree of confidence, intrinsic motivation, self- discipline, autonomous learning skills and creative thinking ability. There is no predetermined level of English skills that must be attained.

The testing in Holistic English is designed to measure the progress in developing the psychological skills necessary for real learning. Real learning will be a natural consequence that will be commensurate with the degree to which the psychological skills have been developed.

For instance one measure of the psychological skills is contained in the oral portion of the Holistic English final examination. On the first day of the semester, all of the students are given the three oral final exam questions and the correct answers. They are advised to start working on them immediately and continuously to get them right. The oral final exam is given one week in advance of the date the students expected. Ten percent of the students will take the opportunity and admonition seriously and will excel at the time of the oral final exam. Ten percent of the students will outright fail the oral final exam, having made no effort beforehand, because they were counting on the Chinese three days educational system mentioned previously. The remainder will do a “so-so” job and fall somewhere in the middle grade wise.

Another measure of the development of the psychological skills is found in the written final examination. The students are given a five week advance take-home exam. They are instructed to write and correct in WORD. A submission deadline is given.  Ten percent of the students will follow the instructions in a timely manner and will submit excellent papers. Ten percent of the students will either not follow the instructions to write and correct in WORD or they will attempt to submit an untimely paper. The remainder of the students will submit a timely “so-so” paper.

The results of the oral and written final exams are thoroughly discussed during the time initially thought to be set aside for the oral exam, usually the last class of the semester. This comprehensive review gives the students one last learning opportunity where it is once again emphasized that they must learn to follow instructions because an employer demands this; they must learn to do things on time “Don’t Delay – Do It Today” because procrastination can result in job failure; lose your “so-so” attitude and strive for perfection because your employer and country require this to move from a developing stage to a developed stage; and be prepared to creatively respond to whatever circumstances life might hand you at any given moment. These principles are reinforced and hammered home through the Holistic English testing methodology which provides real life experiences of each principle. .

Those students who grasped these principles early on made demonstrative corresponding advancements in their reading, writing, listening and speaking English. Those students who rejected these principles from the get go and never changed their attitude failed to make any appreciable improvement in their English. The remainder of the students made correlative improvements in their English commensurate with the degree to which they embraced these principles. The extent to which the students continue to implement these principles will determine the extent to which their English continues to improve through autonomous learning efforts and strategies.

It is time to move away from tests that are unfair, only require memorization skills and only measure standardized results.